My cousin, Sara Ann Wood, was 12 years old when she was abducted on August 18th, 1993. She was less than a mile away from where she lived at the time, and where I live now.

Sara had an obsession with being a performer. She loved to sing, dance, and put on impromptu plays. I remember once, when we were young, she tried to convince us to hang a few sheets from the ceiling to make a curtain we could pull apart when our play started. She handled everything about the plays — from the script to the characters we would play, what we would wear, how we would look, and what we would say or do during the performance.

She loved to collaborate with us on ways to make the plays more interesting and to get our family members interested in watching them. She enjoyed braiding my hair and putting in barrettes I didn’t normally wear, all while talking to me about things only a 12-year-old would be concerned about. Her favorite singer was Dolly Parton, whom she got to see in concert once during a winter storm. Ultimately, Sara had an immeasurable faith in God.

She persisted in seeing the good in others and believed that God would guide her to become the person she was meant to be. If there was something going on at the church, she wanted to be involved. From Sunday school plans to church gatherings and any other social events during the year, she wanted to be there.

Sara had a fear of missing out. She wanted to be part of anything and everything she found out her family or friends were involved in.

She was the type of 12-year-old girl who could make you smile because her smile was infectious. You could tell that, at her core, she had an innocence I can’t even describe. There was a part of her that remained untouched by the evil she would hear about in the world around us.

At the same time, she would make you pause and wonder who she would be one day, because you could tell she had big plans unfolding in her head. Sara loved animals and nature. She adored being outside, no matter the season — spring, summer, fall, or winter. She tried to get us to play pretend with our made-up characters and clubhouses, and she would never sit still unless someone was telling a story or singing.

She was a person I would have liked to get to know as I grew older. I often wonder if she and I would still be close, if she would still be what she was to me back then, or if our relationship would have changed. She was one of my best friends, and we miss her — the person I knew back then and the person I could have gotten to know if I had been allowed to grow older with her.